


Afterimage

by orphan_account



Series: Afterimage [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, EVO is important but not necessary to have watched, Every Hermit gets a chance to Shine, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Respawn Mechanics, Tags May Change, Warnings May Change, Watcher AU (kind of), but like minecraft death, hermitcraft season 7, no one dies permanently i swear, relationships and characters will be tagged as they appear in the fic!, there's too many to list rn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-02-22 23:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23402266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "...a ghost image. An optical illusion that refers to an image continuing to appear in one's vision after the exposure to the original image has ceased."-Something a little screwy is happening on the Hermitcraft server (longer night cycles, stronger mobs, and—wait, real magic? What's going on?), and it's up to the Hermits to figure it out.
Relationships: Grian & GoodTimesWithScar, Hermits & Hermits, No Romantic Relationship(s), Oliver Brotherhood & Charles | Grian
Series: Afterimage [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683418
Comments: 11
Kudos: 137





	1. Chapter 1

It started off like any normal day in Hermitcraft. The parrots were chirping, the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, and the iron golems were trying to kill him again.  
They were right on his tail, flailing their large arms in an attempt to snag him from the back—but he wasn't one of the biggest tricksters of the server for nothing. With each twist and turn of the jungle floor, he gained a little more distance between them, making use of his own small stature and the golems less than intelligent AI.

A bright laugh escaped him as he fled across the grass and brush of the muddy jungle, just toeing the line of fearful as he stumbled on the path towards Scar's house. "Scar, Scar—help!"

The aforementioned man, tending to his cattle, looked up in confusion at Grian's shout. A choke forced its way out of the wizard's throat when he saw the multiple golems barreling toward his direction, with Grian in the lead. "What the—Grian, don't you _dare_ come near me with those things—!"

With a quick glance behind him, he shot Scar an apologetic look. "Too late!"

The "I wish I never joined Hermitcraft" look on Scar's face was _far_ too amusing to Grian as he came closer.

"I knew I should have kept those luck crystals on m—hrk!" He swiftly dodged Grian's running tackle, bringing out his sword to slash the iron golem closest to him, catching its attention.

Now that the iron golems were split between them, he called out in Grian's direction, "You owe me for this, G-man!"

"I know!" the shorter man laughed, crouching behind a bit of Larry as he shot his bow at the splitting golems.

Grian’s arrow struck a golem that sent it whirling sideways, the cracks in its surface shattering into a cloud of white smoke. The bits of iron glimmered in the light as more golems worked their way forward, three or four replacing their fallen comrade.

On the other side of the clearing, Scar backpedaled, drawing his sword up over his shoulder and swinging it diagonally at his combatants. Another hit and another swirl of white smoke plumed upward.

Grian was ducked behind the snail, aiming a bow at one of the golems that were stalking its way towards him. He loosed the arrow and it splintered against the cold, hard, steel plating of the golem. He jumped back with a yelp as it rose its arms, only to swing them back down where he had been moments ago.

He hissed slightly as he swapped to a sword and swung at his assailant. It glanced off the golem with a wha- _TANG_ noise and the vibration that followed the blow shot through his arms.

A yelp ripped itself out of his throat as he ducked to avoid yet another swing, skidding back to guard himself against the iron being.

 _Come on, man!_ he groaned, half-glaring, half-sizing up the golem. It _had_ to be close to dying!

There was, of course, no response from the golem other than the scraping of metal against metal as it swung its arms up again, and Grian had to roll to the side to avoid being hit. He followed up by jumping from the ground and going in for a quick slash, then darting away to assist Scar.

“G-man! How nice of you to show up—” Scar called through gritted teeth as he danced to avoid two iron golems attempting to bash him.

“My pleasure to show up just in time to save the day!” Grian greeted back, running up and brandishing his sword through the onslaught of golems.

It spliced through one, which promptly dropped shining ingots and a nice, red poppy while damaging another. The AI in its mind reoriented itself away from Scar and onto Grian, and pursued him instead. Grian ducked and dove underneath the golem, the clumps of grass and dirt sticking to his red jumper as he sprang up again, landing a hefty blow to the back of the golem.

The golem fell to the ground in another white cloud just as Grian whipped around to check up on Scar. His eyes widened, spotting the golem that had tried to kill him before making its way toward Scar behind him. “Scar! Look behind you—!”

Too late, Scar turned around just in time for the golem to catch him in the chest and send him flying up in an arc, before slamming into the ground.

_GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Iron Golem_

Grian winced. Well, at least he was respawning in Larry...

Scar’s items sprawled out everywhere on the ground where he landed. Various building blocks, a few firework rockets, his tools, and a few ‘magic’ crystals littered the ground, and with deft movements, he swooped past a few iron golems to collect them all up and stuff them into a chest. Scar fell forward out of his snail shell house, not having a door (oops) to hold onto.

“Grian, how on earth did you compile this many golems in the first place—?” He shouted after pushing himself off the ground and diving into his chest to recover what Grian had saved.

“I dunno! I was just trading and somehow made one of them mad!” Grian returned, trying to go after another golem. Just three more- he thought to himself, observing the scattering of iron ingots and poppies from previous golems. But hey, more iron I suppose.

Scar jumped at one of the more beaten-down ones, swiping his sword at its head and knocking it over. Grian noticed a shining green crystal in his off-hand and rolled his eyes with a soft chuckle, then proceeded to join Scar in knocking out the other battered golem with a few well-timed swipes of his sword.

The last challenge was the golem he had failed to defeat previously, and the one that had flung Scar to his death. “Geez, dude, you would think it’d be dead already,” Grian commented, stepping back a little and looking the golem up and down.

It sure looked normal, but it had taken a few solid blows from Grian’s sword, which only needed to swipe at golems around about five times to kill them. He must have only hit it a few times before, since it had a fair few dents, and looked about ready to topple.

Scar, chest heaving, glanced towards him with a small smirk on his face. “Wanna take him down tag-team like?”

He grinned widely. “Definitely.”

Together they leapt at the golem, swiping at it with their swords in sync as it vanished, its remnants whisking away in a cloud of smoke.

* * *

"I hope you know I hate you." Scar grumbled lowly, from beside him.

They were both lying flat on the floor in exhaustion as the day trickled by, already noon. The heat and humidity of the jungle certainly didn't help their already warmed up bodies.

He chuckled back in response. "Love you too, magic man."

They stayed there, simply enjoying the coolness of the earth beneath them for a little longer, before Scar sat up, shifting his robe.

"As much as I like taking in the beauty of nature on this fine day," he offered, sending him a wry look, "I have things to do today. Did you need me for anything Hero, or did you just need my fantastic PVP skills?"

Grian snorted at that. "Fantastic PVP skills" his butt. "Not particularly actually, but I was wondering if you needed help with anything?" He gestured vaguely at the beaten up landscape near Larry and the lake a bit sheepishly.

To be fair, it wasn't beaten up that badly. There were a couple of misplaced blocks here and there along with a few destroyed farm plots, but overall…

No, yeah, it was a bit of a mess. The ground below them was thoroughly wrecked, with tufts of grass thrown up and about, along with haphazardly placed blocks strewn about to create shelter from the iron golems.

Larry made it out relatively unscathed though, ignoring the arrows sticking out of him at odd angles.

...He could practically _feel_ the cold gaze aimed at the back of his head.

"...Hoooow about this then? I fix up everything free of charge, and you go about your day? As thanks for helping me with my golem situation?" Grian proposed lightly, turning around so Scar could see his patented puppy-dog eyes. 100% guaranteed to work!

Scar's eye twitched.

He intensified the eyes power, just a tad, for that 102%.

It took a few more minutes of simpering, but with that, the wizard finally caved, groaning aloud. "Fine. But take this, you'll need it." He plopped down a shulker box, opening it to toss something—oh, for _crying out loud._

"I thought I was free from these," he complained vehemently, glaring at the green crystal that was shoved into his hands. A somewhat smug look was plastered on Scar's face as he packed up the shulker box.

"Nope! You're going to need that luck crystal if you're going to clean up all this mess. And I put another spell on it so I'll know if you throw it away, capiche?"  
Grian narrowed his eyes at the self-righteous wizard but nodded his head in reluctant understanding. While he doubted there was any _actual_ magic on the crystal, he did owe Scar one, so it was only fair. He guessed. "Fine. Not sure how much help it'll actually be, but I appreciate the thought, Scar."

With a self-satisfied laugh, the wizard waved his goodbye and flew off to do… well, whatever he needed to do, he supposed, which left Grian with… the mess. Joy.

He turned to look at the stained glass in his hand and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t suppose you’d actually turn out to be magic and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo all the mess away, would you?”

When the glass stayed stubbornly silent, he huffed, standing up with the dirt he pulled from his inventory. “Didn’t think so.”

* * *

It was dusk now, edging towards night, and the world had been fairly quiet since the morning. Without all the action, it was easy to see why so many of the hermits decided to stay near the lake and jungle, what with its calming atmosphere and the way the greenery seemed to glow in the sunlight. Coupled with the fantasy-like vibe put into their builds, it definitely gave it a sort of “magical” feel.

He huffed out a sigh as he finally placed the last dirt block need to clean up the area, and sat back to admire his work a little proudly.

It wasn’t exactly the way it was—there were a few stray blocks strewn about, and he’s sure that tree wasn’t there before—but it looked pretty good for an impromptu terraforming session, if he said so himself.

Now that everything was done, he sat back against a clump of dirt with a contented hum and pulled out his communicator. The thing had been buzzing for the past few minutes with new messages, so something interesting must be happening—or Scar was dying again. One or the other.

_< MumboJumbo> did anyone else see that odd flash of lightning near the shopping island?  
_ _< iskall85> not me  
_ _< Xisuma> i did  
_ _< Xisuma> How close were you to it, Mumbo?_  
 _< MumboJumbo> not that close  
_ _< MumboJumbo> i was flying over when i saw it  
_ _< MumboJumbo> it looked blue?  
_ _< Xisuma> weird. i’ll look into it  
_ _< iskall85> that’s our admin!_

 _  
_Huh. He’s fairly far away from the island himself, but he hadn’t noticed any storm clouds headed that way…

 _< Grian> were there any storm clouds??  
_ _< Mumbo Jumbo> nice of you to chime in, sherlock grian  
_ _< Mumbo Jumbo> no, it just flashed out of nowhere  
_ _< Mumbo Jumbo> i wouldn’t have given it a second thought if scar hadn’t seen it with me_

Wait, Scar?

 _< Grian> scar is with you?  
_ _< MumboJumbo> not anymore  
_ _< MumboJumbo> he was helpinig me with my new hermit challenge and we were both headed there to pick up some items  
_ _< iskall85> where’d he go??  
_ _< MumboJumbo> well he went back to his mine i think, said he didn’t have enough diamonds_  
 _< Xisuma> mumbo, can you come to my base real quick?  
_ _< MumboJumbo> sure_

He hummed lightly and pocketed the communicator. Whatever it was, it looked like _Ex-Eye-Soomah_ and Mumbo had it covered. Until then…

His eyes drifted towards the stars that started to appear, now that night was settling in, shining softly. The moon reflected off of the lake, light dancing around in the ripples of water as if choreographed to a soundless song, with the ambiance of the jungle being an accompaniment.

...It’d been a while since he’d taken the time to simply just watch the night instead of working straight through it. Maybe he’ll do it again, someday.

That day wasn’t today though. Today, he had some work left to do on his base—it wasn't going to finish itself, after all!

Packing up the multiple shulker boxes he’d emptied out during his time terraforming, he stretched out his limbs and took to the sky with a laugh, letting the wind guide his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thank you to Blue-Jeweled for helping me out with the fight scene with Grian, Scar, and the iron golems!  
> Check them out on Tumblr under the same name, they do amazing art!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mumbo and Iskall meet up and talk.
> 
> AKA
> 
> Mumbo and Iskall poke and jab at each other for 1k words.

_Thunk. Thunk._ Shift. _Rustle, rustle._ ... _Thu—_

"Mumbo, I'm going to throw my trident at you." Iskall's irritated voice echoed loudly in the enclosure they were both in, and Mumbo couldn't help but chuckle nervously as he stopped messing around with the redstone machinery.

It wasn't _his_ fault that the piston contraption wasn't working correctly—the only way to fix it was by doing trial and error, so sounds are expected.

...Though, to be fair, even _he_ was getting tired of the noise.

Dropping the comparators in his hand, he propped himself back against the pillar Iskall himself was sitting against, squinting at him from the corner of his eye. “So…”

“So?”

“Are you going to ask me?”

Iskall tapped his chin, humming lightly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, dude.”

Mumbo’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance, and Iskall laughed aloud, clutching his gut. “Sorry—sorry man! You just looked so serious for a second there.”

The laughter lasted for a couple of minutes before he wiped a tear away from his eye and turned to face Mumbo fully. “Alright, you’ve got my attention. Why’d you call me here? I thought we decided to use “challenger burn sticks” for Hermit Challenges?”

“They still are, and we aren’t here for Hermit Challenges.” Mumbo huffed lightly.

The man beside him snorted incredulously, and he squawked in indignation. “What? Is it too out of character for me to want to just talk to a friend of mine?”

Silence passed over them, and Iskall raised an eyebrow.

Quite clear a message, really, and Mumbo pouted lightly, raising his hands in surrender. “Alright alright, you got me. I figured you’d be curious about the blue lightning I saw with Scar.”

This seemed to catch his friend’s attention as he turned to face Mumbo fully, eye sparking in interest. “Absolutely. What did it look like exactly? Did it leave blue flames? Did you see anything around that could have caused i—”

He stopped abruptly, coming face to face with red-tinted hands with Mumbo peering frantically from behind them. “One at a time, one at a time! I swear, you’re just as bad as Grian…”

“Ah. Sorry about that.” Iskall chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck, letting Mumbo breathe a sigh of relief. “Alright, let’s try this again. Did it leave any blue flames or anything like that?”

A stray piece of stone hit against the ground as Mumbo kicked his foot outward, humming in though. “Not that I saw. By the time Scar and I got close enough to see where the bolt hit, if there _was_ anything, it was already gone.”

It _was_ really quite weird. He and Scar had bumped into each other (literally _bumped_ into each other) while he was building more of his mega base, and they had chatted for a bit. When it came to light that they were heading to the same place, they decided to go off together, Scar offering to help carry his load.

When a _crackOOM_ of sound cascaded down in front of them in the form of _blue lightning_ , it was obvious that _something_ was up, so with a shared look between them, they raced to the place where the lightning had struck.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t really anything _to_ find or see. No evidence of a strike, nothing around them even suggested that it was hit by lightning, and it hadn’t even left any lingering embers… and that’s when he decided to ask if anyone else had seen it.

The other odd thing… was Scar himself.

The man in his wizard get-up seemed out of breath and tired when they met up, even while they were flying casually over the Nether, and he’d simply brushed off Mumbo’s questions and concerns, saying that he “just helped Grian with something”.

Coupled with the rumours of an “operation thunder fire” or “operation aqua lightning” or whatever it was that Grian and Scar seemed to be working on… it definitely seemed suspicious.

A familiar gloved hand waved in front of his face.

“Hello? Mr. Bumbo Baggins? Anyone in there?” Iskall’s voice registered in his ears and he coughed, smiling sheepishly.

“Ah, sorry about that. Did you say something?”

Iskall crossed his arms, glaring at him with no heat. “Why yes, yes I did. I asked if you or Scar saw anything weird while you were in the shopping district, like weird clouds or something like that.”

Mumbo tsked in thought and shook his head. “No. Like I told Grian, there weren’t any clouds or anything. Bright daylight, and it just flashed out of nowhere. Speaking of Grian, though-"

He leaned toward Iskall with a conspiratory look on his face, eyes narrowed. "Have you noticed him and Scar doing some odd things lately? Talking about an operation of some sort, doing weird things like grinding bread and appearing frazzled and tired?" He ticked off another finger. “Or uh, just being odd in general?”

“Mumbo, I think you just described the entirety of the Hermits,” Iskall deadpanned, causing Mumbo to choke.

“Oi!”

Iskall waved him off, his amused smile fading into a mildly concerned frown. “In all seriousness though, I think I know what you’re talking about.” He propped himself more firmly against the stone pillar. “He’s been avoiding my questions about what he and Scar are up to whenever we meet up—and I swear, every time I pass by Scar’s village, it sounds like something’s being blown up ten times over.”

He sounded disgruntled—and to be honest, Mumbo felt the same. So sue him if he felt a bit concerned over their friend working with half of last season’s capitalist duo.

“That’s what I’m saying! They’re up to something, and from the way Scar reacted to the blue lightning, I’d say that they both know something!” he stood up and brushed himself off, offering a hand to Iskall who sighed.

“Are you sure you’re not overthinking this?” he asked plainly, accepting Mumbo’s offered hand.

He grinned. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt to gather more evidence, right? Whaddya say, Wat-skall?”

Iskall shot him a deadpan look. “As long as you never call me that again, I’ll agree.”

“It’s a deal!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! First off, I want to thank everyone so, SO much for all your support and kudos—it means a whole lot to me to know that you guys enjoy it ;;!!  
> Secondly, I wanted to apologize for the short chapter! On a whole I'll try to make chapters at least 2-3k words long, but I felt this chapter ended quite nicely here.  
> Anyway though—thank you so much again for liking my fic, and I'll see you in the next chapter! <3


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